Laminated Beam Span Fine Homebuilding Breaktime

Laminated Beam Span. (post #172078)

(post #172078, reply #2 of 12)

Hi, there! This is Suzi, Doug’s wife. Thank you so much for responding. My husband had to leave for a while and I’ll try to

explain this as simply as I can.

It is not a truss roof.

This is a 10 year old «open concept» house. The house has one section

18 feet wide with 3 levels, next to a center, 4-level section with a separate roof. The living room is 26 feet wide, overlapping the

two sections on the second level. There is an open staircase/atrium to the lower level 20 x 16. The living room is an «L» 33′ from front

to back with the atrium on two sides. I would like to close off the

open atriums with walls. I have no idea what is holding

up the front section of the side wall of the center section with 4

levels and a roof, which has started to dip at that point.

We think the beam is is a parallel lam — many thin layers (30 or so) running parallel to the length. This visible beam, was covered in drywall, traveled the width of the living room, into the center

section of the house. A 4.5″ beam meets it at a 90 degree angle where the 2 sections of the house meet. It is also visible. We don’t know what kind of beam that one is. We have removed some of the corner bead and drywall. From the bottom we see a 2 x 4 with plywood attached to the sides. It is not apparent how the two beams are attached — no joist hanger or metal that we can see and they no longer appear to be touching each other (3/8 to 1/2″ apart).

We have noticed that the beam, especially at the intersection of

the two hanging beams has been cracking and the floor above is

terribly out of level. There is a «strongback» over the beam on the third floor which was made into a long ackward platform along the

bedroom and sitting room wall. Now that we have started to work in that area, we noticed that the floor shakes — I put a two liter bottle of water on the floor and it wiggles when I walk (100 lbs of me) The drywall ceiling in the sitting room — the center section — where the strong back continues (directly above the large open area below) — is cracking.

The former homeowner was doing the renovations but left before

completing them. We have been trying to finish ourselves.

We have removed a 6″ section below the living room (another open area with a beam) We discovered that there is a metal «I» beam supporting the floor above with two 3″ metal posts 13′ 4″ apart, starting 5 feet away from the outside wall. Also, the side of the center section of the house, a beam of 3, 2 x 12’s, rests on this «I» beam. There is no support under this section of the «I» beam and it is out of level

7/l6″ in 4′. It is 9′ from the first post and 4′ from the second. I was planning to put a pole under this